"Ah, you miserable creatures! You who think that you are so great! You who judge humanity to be so small! You who wish to reform everything! Why don't you reform yourselves? That task would be sufficient enough." -Frederick Bastiat

london review of books (mostly use it online when at work, hardly ever find time to read the actual print version cover-to-cover).new yorker.used to subscribe to n+1 magazine and the new left review when i was a graduate student. don't quite have the appetite for either sort of reading now.

no netflix or apple music or anything like that. i like to have the media/files.

i will probably cancel netflix and amazon prime within the next year. Amazon prime is absolutely worthless from a content perspective, and I don't order enough through Amazon to justify prime. Maybe i'll just piggyback on a family member for both instead.

LinkedIn is one of those services where you get out what you put in, and the more you use it, the more it's worth it. It's another one I'll probably cancel once i don't see the use. It's absolutely not useless if you don't want it to be. I've met new vendors, connected with people I haven't heard from in a long time (like a standard social media service), received job interviews, connected with recruiters, received professional endorsements, etc. I know friends who have received employment and won new customers through linkedin.

I used to be in the same boat that linkedin was useless, but have recently (within the last year) done a 180°

I wish they had a Columbia Records or BMG-type service for vinyl. I've been spending soooo much money on records over the last 6 months. I've had to limit myself to a monthly spend. I've picked up some absolute gems for my collection though.

KEN-JENNINGS wrote:

I wish they had a Columbia Records or BMG-type service for vinyl. I've been spending soooo much money on records over the last 6 months. I've had to limit myself to a monthly spend. I've picked up some absolute gems for my collection though.

i do not hope for this. the last thing the vinyl resurgence needs (which was revived by aficionados, DJs and small labels, for the most part) is for the majors to crowd in again with huge subscription services. frankly there aren't enough vinyl presses in working operation today to cope with the upscaled production demands. every summer is already pretty much a no-go-zone for the independents and small labels to get new records pressed because the production queues are backed up for 2/3 months so the major labels can (yet again) remaster and re-release led zeppelin or greenday or something on coloured vinyl for 'Record Store Day'.

i think people should really disengage from amazon and big services like this if there are feasible alternatives. the economics of the book trade are absolutely terrible and basically held hostage to these unprofitable-for-10-years giant platforms.

If i could pick 5 records a month for less than or close to the same as what I spend now, with access to a huge catalog of music instead of having to piecemeal my collection through discog, local brick and mortar (which I do not mind at all), and sometimes other online retailers like ebay or amazon, i'd love that.

Increased demand will lead to increased production, which should lead to more access for indie publishers.

KEN-JENNINGS wrote:

If i could pick 5 records a month for less than or close to the same as what I spend now, with access to a huge catalog of music instead of having to piecemeal my collection through discog, local brick and mortar (which I do not mind at all), and sometimes other online retailers like ebay or amazon, i'd love that.

Increased demand will lead to increased production, which should lead to more access for indie publishers.

You listen to vinyl records and collect baseball cards. How did you go from 30 to 84 overnight?

KEN-JENNINGS wrote:

If i could pick 5 records a month for less than or close to the same as what I spend now, with access to a huge catalog of music instead of having to piecemeal my collection through discog, local brick and mortar (which I do not mind at all), and sometimes other online retailers like ebay or amazon, i'd love that.

Increased demand will lead to increased production, which should lead to more access for indie publishers.

you'd think that would be the case, except hardly anyone makes vinyl presses anymore and they are hugely expensive to set-up and run (machines, operators, premises). brand new music today is mixed and mastered at studios kitted out in the tube 70s/solid state 80s and sent to be mass manufactured at vinyl plants that are easily 30-40 years old (a huge number of them are actually located in ex-soviet countries/places like the czech republic where the vinyl presses were preserved pretty well). i just don't think the technology will ever come back again at a sufficient scale/interest for people to invest in it.

the market and distribution for books is inherently bigger/easier. the economies of scale are much more kind. small independents basically make no money on vinyl records – they're pressing 500–2,000 maybe of each record and using the physical copies as business cards for the more lucrative events/bookings side of the business.

SuperJail Warden wrote:

KEN-JENNINGS wrote:

If i could pick 5 records a month for less than or close to the same as what I spend now, with access to a huge catalog of music instead of having to piecemeal my collection through discog, local brick and mortar (which I do not mind at all), and sometimes other online retailers like ebay or amazon, i'd love that.

Increased demand will lead to increased production, which should lead to more access for indie publishers.

You listen to vinyl records and collect baseball cards. How did you go from 30 to 84 overnight?

No he is a 22 y/o texan who moved to california who maxes out about 1.5-2k viewers and has an entertainingly hard time repressing his right-wing/non-pc upbringing. I adblock every stream I watch so felt kinda obligated to throw some money back into the pool. I've gotten way more hours of entertainment from just having it on my 2nd monitor or during downtime at work than I've gotten from my free netflix sub, and the money is going to one person not a gigantic conglomerate so it makes me feel slightly fuzzy inside, in a good way.

The streamerbase for Escape from Tarkov is incredibly small, not a lot of choice there, but he has the best memes. TPP was an exercise in autism. Only sane way to absorb that was through highlights or write ups of what went down. The concept was incredible though.